Take Advantage of the Sunshine

I love summer. But it’s wearing thin here in South Texas with temperatures still reaching into the triple digits, daily. Wouldn’t it be nice to know how to take advantage of this sunlight and reduce the electric bill?

Here are a few places you can learn about solar energy for your home.

This online course covers the “fundamentals of alternative energy for the individual home owner.”

If you live in Maryland, Maryland Solar Solutions is offering a course in September entitled “How to Fire The Electric Company and Produce My Own Clean Energy Needs.”

Distance Education.Org offers several online courses on solar energy to help you make informed, wise decisions about your solar needs, how solar works, solar thermal systems and solar photovoltaic systems.

If you know of other good solar energy courses for the homeowner please leave a note in the comments.

Thanks.

Summer Energy Efficient Windows

Summer in South Texas has arrived. The solar thermal energy heats up our gardens, our cars and our house. Solar thermal on a cold winter day is a welcome treat.

Solar thermal energy during summer makes my air conditioner run.

Most people frame their energy efficient windows discussion around saving heating costs in winter. However, during summer months, energy efficient windows work hard keeping heat out of our houses.

Energy efficient windows can cost several hundred dollars each. While good energy efficient windows will reduce your energy bill, don’t expect the energy payback to cover the cost of the windows. But your new energy efficient windows purchases and installed this year (2009) may qualify for a federal tax credit. Energystar.gov .

Read the labels on the windows your are considering.

The first thing to consider is the U-factor. The u-factor measures heat transfer and the numbers range from .25 to 1.25. This is a measure of how well insulated the window is. A lower number is better, meaning the window is better insulated.

We’ll talk more about windows next time.

Energy Efficiency

Our plan to go solar and make our home a net ZEH variety home began nine (9) months ago with the implementation of energy conservation measures. Conservation meaning, daily choices that conserve energy and eliminate wasteful practices.

We’ve done all of the small, inexpensive, easily fixed steps to conserve energy and reduce our monthly kilowatt-hour usage.

For the past nine months, we’ve been diligently tracking our kilowatt-hour usages. Comparing our monthly energy use to the same month a year ago, we can see remarkable changes.

Over the past nine months, compared to the same nine months the year before, we’ve reduced our energy consumption by 26.8 percent. And this from energy conservation measures only that require little more that a decision to make a different choice.

Our next phase is energy efficiency.

Efficiency involves technological choices that save energy, such as energy efficient windows and energy saving appliances, just to name a few.

These things require a greater outlay of money, which makes this a more challenging step for us in these economic times.

So I’ll soon begin researching and documenting here in these pages our energy efficiency struggles and choices.

Energy Conservation Works

Going solar. Sometimes it seems the going is slower than I’d like. But occasionally I get motivation to keep going. Ours is defiantly a “Tortoise and Hare” story.

The most recent encouragement to keep our hare in the race was the arrival of our electric bill.

For eight months now, we’ve had our home on an energy diet of sorts, trying to reduce the amount of electric energy our home uses. The less energy we require the less we will need to spend on a solar energy system.

Our current electric energy bill…drum roll please… is 45 percent less than the same month last year!

Yes, that means a 45 percent reduction in kilowatt-hours used. And I am ecstatic.

I feel myself becoming an energy miser.

Not all months have shown this great a decrease in energy use. But each month, compared with the same month last year, has shown a decrease.
The interesting thing is, we have only been practicing energy conservation, not energy efficiency.

Energy conservation practices do not require huge outlays of money. Think of conservation as small conscious habits and choices, which, made daily, add up to huge savings over time.

After we get the conservation habits down, we begin implementing efficiency measures, which require some larger monetary investments.

After efficiency measures reduce our energy consumption even further, we will have a more accurate idea of how many solar panels we need.

I’ll keep you all posted on our progress.

We’d love to hear how your home energy story is unfolding, so leave us a comment. Thanks!

Before you purchase that solar power system, you need to know how many panels you need to support your home energy use.

Soon after you begin the energy discovery process you learn about invisible critters called “phantom loads”  that haunt your home.

It’s hard to see evidence of these little devils but here’s a way to get visual evidence.

Make sure all the heavy electric energy users are off, like your heater or air conditioner and hot water heater and all your lights. Then go take a look at your electric meter.

I did this the other day while enjoying some free weather. The windows were open, our hot water heater was off, and I didn’t hear the refrigerator running. The house had this moment of unusual quietness.

So I went outside to take a look at the electric meter. And it was spinning! While it seemed all was off inside the house, the electric meter still indicated the house was using energy!

It was a visual reminder that those little phantoms were alive and well inside even though I couldn’t hear them.

The computer, (even when switched off), the microwave, the coffee pot (with its digital clock), all the digital clocks in the house, my sewing machine, etc, were all running as quietly as ever.

If you need evidence, watch your own electric meter.

Then go get yourself a few power strips!

Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

Did you know you can calculate your home energy carbon footprint? There’s a nifty carbon footprint calculator at BeGreenNow.com. All you have to do is enter your kilowatt-hour usage and/or your natural gas usage for the month (or year).

Using the BeGreenNow calculator, I calculated my home’s carbon footprint based on my kilowatt-hour usage alone. My home’s carbon footprint measured in CO2 emissions from electrical use for 2008 was10.79 tons.

Is that good or bad?

The Nature Conservancy also has a free carbon footprint calculator. Their calculator, based on averages, has no input for kilowatt-hours used. After answering a series of questions, they totaled my CO2 emissions per year at 23 tons.

While the Nature Conservancy site calculator teaches lots about how daily habits affect energy use, the BeGreenNow calculator felt more realistic since they use my actual kilowatt-hour usages.

Reducing your home energy consumption begins with knowing what you are using today. Then you can consider and make changes to reduce your energy consumption (and your energy bill!)

Go ahead. Try one of these carbon footprint calculators to get an idea of your home’s energy use.

BeGreenNow

The Nature Conservancy

Our Home Energy Reduction 2008 Progress

This week I paid my last electric utility bill for 2008. As mentioned in Monday’s post we went off our “energy diet” during the holidays, so the monthly bill was higher than usual.

Still, in spite of our holiday energy binge, we used fewer kilowatt-hours (kWh) than the previous December (2007). Almost 5% less than last December, in fact.

We have been paying closer attention to our energy consumption for six (6) months now. Only four (4) months ago we began implementing some changes.

The news is that comparing our 2007 and 2008 home kilowatt-hour (kWh) use, we reduced our energy consumption in 2008 by more than 10 percent! This may seem like peanuts to some, but to me this is nothing short of amazing!

Really, our efforts have been minimal not extreme by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, if we had made this same minimal effort the whole year, I estimate our reduction over twelve (12) months would be at least 20 percent.

I have not calculated how my 10 percent reduction translates in carbon footprint terms.

Does anyone know how to make this calculation?

If so, please leave a comment. Thanks!

Programmable Thermostats for Home Energy Conservation

On this solar energy journey, one of the most helpful gadgets to help reduce home energy consumption and thereby reducing the size of the solar energy system required, is a programmable thermostat.

The Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) estimates a programmable thermostat can save the average American household up to $170 just over the course of this winter alone.

The ASE explains how these thermostats work to save your money without sacrificing comfort in Save Energy 101.

If you haven’t switched to a programmable thermostat yet, install one now and start saving energy dollars now.

Another Tutorial on Home Solar Energy

You want energy independence. You want to reduce your carbon footprint. You want lower home energy bills.

Educate yourself about solar energy and other renewable energy sources.

Find out how to incorporate them into your lifestyle.

And then do something.

Alternate Energy Source gives you the basics on solar power.

Check them out.

How to Gain Control of Your Home Energy Consumption

The buzzwords these days are green, renewable, sustainable, and carbon footprint. You care about all these, but sometimes your busy life keeps you from making changes. With work, kids, household upkeep, and bills, there just isn’t time to make huge changes.

Instead of thinking about all the pieces of the energy puzzle, it’s easier to think about one change at a time. But where do you start?

Start at home. Find out just how much energy your large home appliances are using. The greatest energy users in your home are heating/cooling systems, large kitchen appliances, and hot water. Get a handle on the big items will bring results faster.

Here’s something to help you find the energy hogs in your home.

The Kill A Watt Plug Meter is a good plug meter that measures watts and kWh. This handy devise allows you to see just how much electricity one appliance is using. It is an inexpensive way to start getting the big picture of how your home uses electricity.

Once you know where your greatest energy consumption is you can do something about it, one small step at a time.